Seed

Seed runs as a thread from the third day of creation through the resurrection body. Each kind yields after itself, the field belongs to the one who sows, and the harvest answers to what was sown. The figure carries Israel's holiness statutes, the wisdom literature's counsel of patient labor, the prophets' verdict on a faithless vineyard, and Jesus' picture of the kingdom as a sower's field and a small grain. Paul gathers the threads into a doctrine of the resurrection of the body and a doctrine of giving.

Seed in Creation

The first appearance of seed is in the creative speech itself. "Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, [and] fruit-trees bearing fruit after their kind, in which is their seed, on the earth: and it was so" (Gen 1:11). The earth answers the speech in kind: "And the earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, in which is their seed, after their kind: and God saw that it was good" (Gen 1:12). The seed-bearing herb is then given to humanity for food: "Look, I have given you⁺ every herb yielding seed, which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you⁺ it will be for food" (Gen 1:29). The pattern set here — each kind reproducing after its own kind — is the bedrock the rest of the umbrella builds on.

Each Kind in Its Own Body

Paul rehearses the same pattern in his argument for the resurrection. "You foolish one, that which you yourself sow is not quickened except it dies: and that which you sow, you do not sow the body that will be, but a bare grain, it may be of wheat, or of some other kind; but God gives it a body even as it pleased him, and to each seed a body of its own" (1Co 15:36-38). The continuity of seed and plant is not the continuity of one body but the giving of a new body, kind by kind, by God.

Mingled Seed Forbidden

Israel's holiness statutes prohibit mixing what God has made distinct. "You⁺ will keep my statutes. You will not let your cattle gender with a diverse kind: you will not sow your field with two kinds of seed: neither will there come upon you a garment of two kinds of stuff mingled together" (Lev 19:19). The rule is repeated for the vineyard with a sharper penalty: "You will not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, or else the whole fruit will be forfeited, the seed which you have sown, and the increase of the vineyard" (Deut 22:9).

Sow in the Morning

Wisdom counsels persistent sowing under uncertainty. "In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening don't withhold your hand; for you don't know which will prosper, whether this or that, or whether they both will be alike good" (Ec 11:6). Ben Sira generalizes the figure: "According to the cultivation of a tree so is its yield, [So] the thought of a man according to his nature" (Sir 27:6).

Sowing and Reaping as a Moral Law

The first axis the figure carries is moral: a man reaps what he sows. "According to as I have seen, those who plow iniquity, And sow trouble, reap the same" (Job 4:8). The Proverbs line up the same case. "He who sows iniquity will reap calamity; And the rod of his wrath will fail" (Pr 22:8). "The wicked earns deceitful wages; But he who sows righteousness [has] a sure reward" (Pr 11:18). What is sown into a community is also reaped from it: "In whose heart is perverseness, Who devises evil continually, Who sows discord" (Pr 6:14); "A perverse man scatters abroad strife; And a whisperer separates best friends" (Pr 16:28). Ben Sira sharpens the warning toward kin: "Do not knowingly plow against a brother; Or else you will reap it sevenfold" (Sir 7:3).

Paul states the law as a creation principle. "Don't be deceived; God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will of the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap eternal life" (Ga 6:7-8). And he applies it to giving: "But this [I say], He who sows sparingly will reap also sparingly; and he who sows bountifully will reap also bountifully" (2Co 9:6); "And he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, will supply and multiply your⁺ seed for sowing, and increase the fruits of your⁺ righteousness" (2Co 9:10).

The Harvest of Sin

The prophets press the same axis as a national verdict. Israel's idolatry returns on its head: "For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind: he has no standing grain; the blade will yield no meal; if it does yield, strangers will swallow it up" (Ho 8:7); "You⁺ have plowed wickedness, you⁺ have reaped iniquity; you⁺ have eaten the fruit of lies; for you trusted in your way, in the multitude of your mighty men" (Ho 10:13). Judah is told the harvest will come for her too (Ho 6:11). Jeremiah hears the verdict from the planter's side: "They have sown wheat, and have reaped thorns; they have tired themselves out, and profit nothing. And be⁺ ashamed of your⁺ fruits, because of the fierce anger of Yahweh" (Je 12:13). Babylon's turn comes as well: "The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while, and the time of harvest will come for her" (Je 51:33). Isaiah names the disappointment of the planter who has not reckoned with Yahweh: "In the day of your planting you hedge it in, and in the morning you make your seed to blossom; but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow" (Is 17:11).

Joel sees the figure run to the end. "Let the nations bestir themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the nations round about. Put⁺ in the sickle; for the harvest is ripe: come, tread⁺; for the wine press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great" (Joe 3:12-13). The Apocalypse picks up the same sickle: "And another angel came out from the temple, crying with a great voice to him who sat on the cloud, Send forth your sickle, and reap: for the hour to reap has come; for the harvest of the earth is ripe" (Re 14:15).

Sowing in Tears

The second axis is hopeful. Sowing under hardship reaps in joy. "Those who sow in tears will reap in joy. He who goes forth and weeps, bearing seed for sowing, Will doubtless come again with joy, bringing his sheaves [with him]" (Ps 126:5-6). "Blessed are you⁺ who sow beside all waters, who send forth the feet of the ox and the donkey" (Is 32:20). The prophet's call is to break new ground: "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap according to kindness; break up your⁺ fallow ground; for it is time to seek Yahweh, until he comes and rains righteousness on you⁺" (Ho 10:12).

The Spiritual Harvest

Jesus turns the figure forward. "Don't you⁺ say, There are yet four months, and [then] comes the harvest? Look, I say to you⁺, Lift up your⁺ eyes, and look at the fields, that they are white to harvest. Already he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit to eternal life; that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together" (Jn 4:35-36). "The harvest indeed is plenteous, but the workers are few: pray⁺ therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth workers into his harvest" (Lu 10:2). And of the kingdom's quiet ripening: "But when the fruit is [ready to] deliver, right away he puts forth the sickle, because the harvest has come" (Mr 4:29). Paul keeps the workers in heart: "And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we will reap, if we do not faint" (Ga 6:9).

The Sower and the Seed

The interpretive center of the umbrella is Jesus' parable of the sower. "The sower went forth to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trodden under foot, and the birds of the heaven devoured it. And other fell on the rock; and as soon as it grew, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And other fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew with it, and choked it. And other fell into the good ground, and grew, and brought forth fruit a hundredfold" (Lu 8:5-8). The interpretation Jesus gives names the seed for the rest of the New Testament: "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God" (Lu 8:11). The four soils — wayside, rock, thorns, good ground — are four hearings of the same seed. The wayside hearer loses the word to the devil; the rock hearer believes for awhile and falls away in trial; the thorns are choked with "cares and riches and pleasures of [this] life" (Lu 8:14); the good ground are "such as in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it fast, and bring forth fruit with patience" (Lu 8:15).

The Mustard Seed

A second kingdom-parable runs through the same image at smaller scale. "It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown on the earth, though it is less than all the seeds that are on the earth" (Mr 4:31). "It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his own garden; and it grew, and became a tree; and the birds of the heaven lodged in its branches" (Lu 13:19). The smallness of the beginning is the figure's whole point.

The Grain of Wheat

Wheat in the UPDV is the staple grain — paid as tribute, gathered for kings and temples, threshed in hidden places when enemies are near. The plagues fall on barley but spare the wheat that is not yet up: "But the wheat and the spelt were not struck: for they were not grown up" (Ex 9:32). Yahweh's portion to Israel includes "the finest of the wheat" (De 32:14). Gideon hides his threshing in the wine press from the Midianites (Jdg 6:11). Solomon pays Hiram twenty cors of wheat year by year (1Ki 5:11), and Artaxerxes' decree to Ezra stipulates a hundred cors of wheat (Ezr 7:22).

The grain comes to the threshing-floor in John's preaching as a figure of judgment: "whose fan is in his hand, thoroughly to cleanse his threshing-floor, and to gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire" (Lu 3:17).

And then the figure turns again, in Jesus' own mouth, on himself. "Truly, truly, I say to you⁺, Except a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it stays alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (Jn 12:24). The condition of fruitfulness is the death of the seed.

Conditions of Fruit-bearing

From the grain that dies the figure widens into a doctrine of fruitfulness. The fruitful person is "like a tree planted by streams of water: its fruit it yields in season, and its leaf does not wither, and in all that he does, he prospers" (Ps 1:3). Such are "planted in the house of Yahweh; They will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bring forth fruit in old age" (Ps 92:13-14). In the prophet's vision the fruit-trees grow on either side of the river that issues from the sanctuary: "it will bring forth new fruit every month, because its waters issue out of the sanctuary; and its fruit will be for food, and its leaf for healing" (Eze 47:12), echoed in the city of God where "a tree of life that bears fruit twelve [times per year], every month yielding its fruit: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations" (Re 22:2).

In Jesus' last discourse the picture is drawn tight to himself. "I am the vine, you⁺ are the branches: He who stays in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit: for apart from me you⁺ can do nothing" (Jn 15:5). Fruit-bearing is conditional on abiding, and the Father prunes for more: "Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes it away: and every [branch] that bears fruit, he cleanses it, that it may bear more fruit" (Jn 15:2). Election is for fruit: "You⁺ did not choose me, but I chose you⁺, and appointed you⁺, that you⁺ should go and bear fruit, and [that] your⁺ fruit should stay" (Jn 15:16).

The apostolic letters press the same. Believers are "made dead to the law through the body of Christ; that you⁺ should be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit to God" (Ro 7:4). Freed from sin, "you⁺ have your⁺ fruit to sanctification, and the end eternal life" (Ro 6:22). Chastening, painful while it lasts, "yields peaceful fruit to those who have been exercised by it, [even the fruit] of righteousness" (He 12:11). The walk that pleases the Lord is one of "bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God" (Cl 1:10), filled "with the fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ" (Php 1:11).

The Fruit of the Spirit and the Fruit of the Light

The contents of the fruit are named. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; against such there is no law" (Ga 5:22-23). "The fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth" (Ep 5:9). The wisdom from above "is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without variance, without hypocrisy" (Jas 3:17). Christian character grows in stages: "in your⁺ faith supply virtue; and in [your⁺] virtue knowledge; and in [your⁺] knowledge self-control; and in [your⁺] self-control patience; and in [your⁺] patience godliness; and in [your⁺] godliness brotherly kindness; and in [your⁺] brotherly kindness love" (2Pe 1:5-7), abounding "in pureness, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love" (2Co 6:6), and in "faith, and utterance, and knowledge" alike (2Co 8:7). Paul seeks not the gift but "the fruit that increases to your⁺ account" (Php 4:17).

The Vineyard That Yielded Bad Grapes

Set against fruitfulness is a long thread of unfruitful planting. Isaiah sings the song of the disappointed planter: "and he dug it, and gathered out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also hewed out a wine press in it: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth bad [grapes]" (Is 5:2). Hosea names Israel's unfruitful luxuriance: "Israel is a luxuriant vine, that puts forth his fruit: according to the abundance of his fruit he has multiplied his altars" (Ho 10:1). The song of Moses calls Israel's worst yield by its origin: "For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, And of the fields of Gomorrah: Their grapes are grapes of gall, Their clusters are bitter" (De 32:32).

Jesus tells the parable of the unfruitful fig: "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none" (Lu 13:6). The hidden mina is its commercial form: "Lord, look, [here is] your mina, which I kept laid up in a napkin" (Lu 19:20). The land that drinks the rain "but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is disapproved and near to a curse; whose end is to be burned" (He 6:8). And of the wicked man's children Sirach says, "Her children will not spread out their roots, And her branches will bear no fruit" (Sir 23:25).

The works of the flesh are the unfruitful counterpart to the Spirit's fruit: "whoring, impurity, sexual depravity, idolatry, witchcraft, enmities, strife, jealousy, wraths, factions, divisions, parties, envyings, drunkenness, revelings, and things similar to these; of which I forewarn you⁺, even as I did forewarn you⁺, that those who participate in such things will not inherit the kingdom of God" (Ga 5:19-21).

Degrees of Fruitfulness

Fruitfulness in scripture is not a single state but a range. Daniel's tree is at the upper limit: "Its leaves were fair, and its fruit much, and in it was food for all: the beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the birds of the heavens dwelt in its branches, and all flesh was fed from it" (Da 4:12). The vine bears, but the Father prunes for more (Jn 15:2). The wisdom from above bears "good fruits" plurally (Jas 3:17). The river-fed tree bears its fruit twelve times a year (Re 22:2). The good ground in Luke's parable bears "a hundredfold" (Lu 8:8). The mustard-seed kingdom comes from a smaller seed than the rest of the garden but ends as a tree with birds in its branches (Mr 4:31; Lu 13:19). Even the Diognetus letter notices the paradoxical multiplication of the persecuted: "Do you not see that the more they are punished, the more others multiply?" (Gr 7:8).

The arc of the umbrella, set into one image, is this: God speaks the seed-bearing herb into the earth, and each kind yields after its own kind; what is sown is reaped; what falls into the ground and dies bears much fruit; the seed is the word of God; the small grain becomes a tree; and at the end the sickle is put forth, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.